What are you trying to accomplish? If all you want is to take a flier on a penny stock in the hope of seeing the stock take off and striking it rich, I suppose Envision is as good as any. It's got a cute concept in an emerging technology and could conceivably become a much bigger player.

But doing so doesn't really address the risks you are facing in concentrating your investments in such a limited market sector. The technology is new, the market is fragmented, and the ultimate winners have yet to be determined. Even if solar grows by leaps and bounds in the next few years, as its proponents hope, there is no real reason to believe that Envision will still be around to get its slice of the pie. If you want to put your money in alternative energy, I suggest you invest in an ETF that specializes in the sector. That will allow your money to grow as the market grows without the guesswork of needing to pick a winner ahead of time. Something like TAN (a solar energy ETF) or PBW (a broader ETF that includes solar, wind and other alternative energy companies).

Much of the growth in solar is based on government subsidies, for example Germany's. In the case of Dell, I would say they are just interested in a show piece. It is unlikely that they would ever get all their power from solar as it is quite expensive and factories use a lot of power.

Unless you are well off and want to take a big risk, I would say no.

I don't know. I have some solar lights in my front yard that are pretty awesome though. I would want to send a nice letter to the govt telling them to stop messing with the weather though because it wouldn't help with solar power.